W
Director: : Oliver Stone
Starring: Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Banks, Toby Jones, Thandie Newton
Out: Now

So now that Barack Obama is in the White House, does anyone still give two hoots about George W Bush? Well, Oliver Stone clearly does, as he has tried to rake over the coals of W’s time in office and has even aimed for a few laughs along the way.

Unlike his movies about Nixon and Jack Kennedy, Stone hasn’t waited for a real wedge of time to pass and that could be the movie’s biggest weakness.

What Stone has actually made is a kind of fable, a light drama with deadly ramifications for the real world of Iraq, Afghanistan and America’s reputation worldwide. Bush is played by Josh Brolin as an affable chancer; a man whose political smarts emerged only after a string of failed relationships and business ventures.

In Stanley Weiser’s screenplay, the key driving force behind W is his relationship with his father, President George HW Bush. James Cromwell’s HW constantly disapproves of his son, chiding “Junior” for crashing his car, chasing skirt and boozing, and always creating mess for his Dad to clean up.

He’s letting down the Bush family legacy you see and to infuriate the errant son further, there are constant unflattering comparisons with his more serious brother Jeb. In Stone’s version of this little family drama, a drunk W even challenges his Dad to a fist fight, which I’m not sure I would fancy against James Cromwell - who is the same height as Peter Crouch!

Eventually of course W is Born Again, literally in the Christian tradition as he puts his booze-fuelled days behind him and gains entry into Harvard Business School (the suggestion is that Daddy fixed that though).

It is a humanising portrayal. We are asked to understand how W, the man —vulnerable and mediocre — could possibly become a chief executive who could control a room containing the likes of Karl Rove (Toby Jones), Dick Cheney (Richard Dreyfuss), Colin Powell (Jeffrey Wright) and Condoleezza Rice (Thandie Newton).

Brolin does really good work, the voice seems eerily accurate and he has created a character whose flaws and temperament are interesting to watch. Is it funny? Not really, there are few mild titters but the movie neither really goes for the funny bone nor the political jugular. We don’t see anything on the controversial election of 2000, or 9/11 and the ‘My Pet Goat’ incident.

That’s not to say the actors aren’t good. They are. Particularly Richard Dreyfuss as a frighteningly spot-on Dick Cheney.

We also get to see Laura Bush (Elizabeth Banks) as an apolitical Librarian who was taken in by W’s charm. Let’s be honest though: Laura Bush is not really that interesting. Which probably sums up the film.

Johnny Messias

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